Vanderbilt edged out conference rival Tennessee for a No. 1 seed in the
NCAA
women's basketball tournament Sunday and joined Connecticut, Duke and
Oklahoma at the top of the brackets.

Top-ranked Connecticut (33-0) is the overwhelming favorite in the
tournament
and was the No. 1 seed in the Mideast Regional. The Huskies will begin
their
quest for a third national championship at home against St. Francis,
champion of the Northeast Conference.

Duke was the No. 1 seed in the East, Vanderbilt in the Midwest and Oklahoma
in the West.

Vanderbilt was the surprise of the top four. The Commodores (27-6) finished
three games behind regular-season champion Tennessee (25-4) in the
Southeastern Conference standings, but split two late games with the Lady
Vols and won the conference tournament.

"They've always said the last 10 games are really important, and I've heard
that over and over and over again," Vanderbilt coach Jim Foster said. "It's
reinforcing something that they're saying, the reality of, `We say it, we
mean it.'

"I'm not surprised by it."

Tennessee lost to LSU in the semifinals of the SEC tournament and also had
a
late-season loss to Texas. The Lady Vols were the No. 2 seed in the
Midwest,
and that puzzled coach Pat Summitt as much as not being a No. 1.

Why, she asked, would you put the two top teams from the SEC in the same
regional?

"I thought we had earned (a No. 1) with the schedule we played and our RPI
number one the country and we only lost one conference game in the SEC
which
had eight teams get in the tournament," Summitt said.

"So the conference tournament it appears, not only in our bracket but all
brackets, really became more of a factor than I had anticipated."

The three other No. 1 seeds all won their conference tournaments and
regular-season titles.

It's only the second time in the last 15 years that Tennessee, a six-time
national champion, has not been a No. 1 seed. The Lady Vols were seeded
third in 1997 - and won the national championship.

"The committee came down to how teams did at the very end and we just
really
felt that Vanderbilt deserved that number one," said Maryalyce Jeremiah,
who
chairs the committee.

As for putting Tennessee and Vanderbilt in the same region, Jeremiah said
it
was done to remain true to the seeds. Vanderbilt ranked fourth among the
No.
1 seeds, Tennessee was first among the No. 2-seeded teams.

"We would have compromised Tennessee's seed in order to move them,"
Jeremiah
said. "If we would have moved them to another region, it theoretically
would
have made them play someone with a higher seed."

Connecticut was the top overall No. 1 seed, followed by Oklahoma, Duke and
Vanderbilt. UConn was a No. 1 seed for the eighth time in nine years and
got
this one after a dominating season. The Huskies have won by an average of
37
points and only one team, Virginia Tech, kept the margin in single digits.

Invincible? Not necessarily, Connecticut coach Geno Auriemma said.

"We played about seven or eight teams this year that I thought if we didn't
play well, we had a chance to lose," Auriemma said. "If we go in thinking
we're unbeatable, we're going to get beat, just like everybody else who
thinks like that."

Duke received a No. 1 seed for the second straight year, and Oklahoma for
the first time. Vanderbilt had been a No. 1 seed twice previously, in 1993
and 1995.

The other No. 2s were Baylor in the East, Purdue in the Mideast and
Stanford
in the West.

In the women's tournament, the top four seeds in each region are the sites
for first- and second-round games. Eight sites will have games on Friday
and
the eight others on Saturday.

Second-round games are Sunday and Monday and those winners advance to
regionals in Raleigh (East), Milwaukee (Mideast), Ames, Iowa (Midwest) and
Boise (West). The Final Four is in San Antonio. In the national semifinals,
it will be the Mideast against the Midwest and East against the West.

Louisiana Tech is conspicuously absent from the top 16 seeds. The Lady
Techsters (25-4), who won the Western Athletic Conference regular-season
and
tournament titles, are the No. 5 seed in the East.

This is the first time Tech has not been seeded among the top 16 since
1993.
Tech plays Cal Santa Barbara in Austin, Texas, on Friday.

"You have to live with it and we will deal with," Tech coach Leon Barmore
said.

The brackets are laden with Southeastern Conference, Big 12 and Big Ten
teams.

The SEC matched its record with eight teams in the tournament. That group
includes Georgia, which went 6-8 in the league but is 19-10 overall and has
a strong RPI. The Lady Bulldogs were selected ahead of Alabama, 7-7 in the
SEC.

Also in from the SEC are Vanderbilt, Tennessee, Arkansas, Florida, LSU,
Mississippi State and South Carolina.

Oklahoma and Baylor are among seven Big 12 teams in the field, joining
Colorado, Iowa State, Kansas State, Texas and Texas Tech. All seven Big 12
teams were seeded among the top 16 and will start the tournament at home.

The Big Ten put six in the tournament: Purdue, Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota,
Penn State and Wisconsin. Wisconsin made it despite a late season collapse
during which the Badgers lost 10 of 13. They started 15-1 and were ranked
as high as fifth.